Swansea Summer (11 page)

‘A motorbike is stylish enough for me,’ she enthused. ‘Just think, for once we can go somewhere off the bus route. Perhaps Pennard Castle or the woods around Parkmill.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Because you hit Adam.’

‘Because I lost control. If Brian hadn’t been there and shouted at me I wouldn’t have stopped …’ He buried his face in his hands.

‘But you did, Martin.’ She pulled his hands away. ‘Don’t let a stupid quarrel with the boys spoil what could be a good day out for both of us.’

Martin turned as someone tapped his shoulder. Looking past him as if he were invisible, Joe beamed at Lily. ‘Would you like to dance?’

‘Sorry, Joe,’ she apologised politely but firmly. ‘Martin and I were discussing something important.’

‘It is just a dance, Lily.’ Joe’s smile tightened as his eyes darkened.

‘I don’t mind.’ Martin had no idea why he was saying the exact opposite of what he felt, or why Joe Griffiths always succeeded in making him feel as if he were still the grubby street urchin in hand-me-down clothes because his father drank away the rent and housekeeping money more weeks than he handed it over.

‘Perhaps we could have the next dance, Joe,’ Lily suggested.

‘She wouldn’t dance with you?’ Robin asked Joe as he returned to the bar.

‘It’s all part of her ploy to make me jealous. She told me to ask her for the next one.’ Joe snapped his fingers at the barman and pointed to their empty glasses.

‘And will you?’ Unlike Joe, Robin wasn’t at all convinced that Lily was playing games with his friend.

‘No.’ Joe took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered them to Robin. ‘I’ll make her wait until the first slow dance after that.’

The barman filled their glasses but Robin had to put his hand into his pocket to pay the man. Joe was too engrossed in watching every move Lily and Martin were making to concern himself with anything as mundane as paying for their drinks.

‘You didn’t have to turn Joe down on my account.’ In trying to contain his jealousy Martin realised he had only succeeded in sounding offhand.

‘I put him off on my account, not yours. We were making plans for tomorrow, remember.’

‘You were the one making plans. I was trying to tell you to stay away from me because I lost my temper. Besides, you and Joe were almost engaged – if there’s any likelihood of you two getting back together, don’t let me stand in the way.’

‘There is no likelihood,’ she interrupted caustically. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her voice and continued in a calmer tone. ‘Please, can’t we carry on discussing tomorrow? We don’t have to visit the castle or the woods. It was only a suggestion. I’d be happy to go wherever you like.’

Yet again, he pictured what he’d done to Adam and his blood ran cold. Why couldn’t she see the danger of going anywhere with him? ‘After what happened with Adam …’

‘You did what you had to, Martin. It’s obvious Brian and Sam don’t think any the less of you for it and they’re policemen. If you’d broken the law they would have arrested you, so will you please stop going on about it.’

As they tried to pick up their conversation, Martin felt as though their outing was doomed before it had begun. It wasn’t just his guilt over attacking Adam. It was Joe. He felt as if Joe had invited himself along. A good-looking, wealthy, well-educated, self-assured young man with promise; how could he even consider himself a serious rival? And how could Lily fail to be in love with Joe when he so blatantly loved and wanted her?

Chapter Six

As the mellow, romantic strains of ‘Autumn Leaves’ filled the ballroom, Joe walked purposefully to the table where Lily and Martin had been joined by Brian and Katie. ‘Would you like to dance, now?’ He gave Lily a tight-lipped smile.

To his irritation she turned to Martin for approval. ‘Do you mind?’

Martin shook his head, wishing he had the courage to tell her – and Joe – that he did mind … very much.

As Joe took her hand and swept her into his arms, Lily tried to hold back, keeping as much distance between them as possible.

‘Now you’ve made me jump through hoops …’

‘I haven’t made you do anything, Joe,’ she murmured, acutely conscious of Martin watching them.

‘No?’ He stared intently into her eyes, dazzlingly beautiful with tawny gold lights and the reflection of the mirror ball that hung above them. Just as he had seen them every night in his dreams since he had first danced with her in this same ballroom.

‘No,’ she reiterated decisively.

‘I would have liked to have spoken to you this afternoon. I hoped we could have sat next to one another at the reception.’

‘It made more sense for the bridesmaid and best man to sit next to one another.’

‘It made no sense to me.’ He guided her into the centre of the room. The lights were dim – too dim to see the expressions on the faces of the people sitting at the tables around the perimeter of the room, he noted gratefully, but not too dim to note every curve and line of her face and commit them to memory.

‘Helen had a lovely day.’ Lily made an attempt to move the conversation away from the personal.

‘I wanted to make it our day too.’

‘There is no more “our”, Joe,’ she said resolutely.

‘I behaved badly at our engagement party. I should never have walked out on you when that woman …’

‘My mother,’ she corrected.

‘You haven’t seen her since?’ He was alarmed at the thought that Lily might want to keep in contact and actually acknowledge her if she saw her again. From what Robin had said, he knew Lily’s reputation was damaged; it would never survive further gossip.

‘No.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘But neither can I ignore the fact that she gave birth to me.’

‘It would be more sensible if you did,’ he lectured.

‘Possibly.’ Steeling herself for what she might see, she glanced over his shoulder to her table. Brian and Katie were talking but Martin was still staring in their direction.

‘Rumour has it she ill-treated you before she abandoned you. You don’t owe her anything.’

‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about her, Joe,’ she interrupted impatiently. ‘That is, unless you’ve heard something I should know.’

‘I haven’t heard anything.’

‘Then why ask me to dance?’

‘I need a reason?’

Lily swallowed her rising irritation. ‘No, but at the risk of sounding bad-mannered, I don’t like discussing our engagement party – or my mother.’

‘You did say when you broke off our engagement that we could remain friends.’ Suddenly realising that she was looking in Martin’s direction, he whirled her round, turning her back to her table so she couldn’t see him any longer.

‘And I meant it, Joe.’ She finally gave her full attention to Joe.

‘But we’re not friends, are we.’

‘Of course we are. We wouldn’t be dancing together now if we weren’t.’

‘I disagree.’ He gazed into her eyes, willing her to sense the depth of his love for her. ‘We’re not, at least not in the sense of casual acquaintances, and I don’t think we can ever be that to one another again. Not after what happened between us.’

‘Joe …’

‘Hear me out, Lily. What I have to say is very simple. I love you. I never stopped loving you – not for an instant. When I walked away from you that day I knew I was making the biggest mistake of my life and all I can say in my defence is that I wasn’t thinking straight.’ Keeping her back to Martin, he guided her into the thick of the crowd, where he sensed she’d be reluctant to make a scene. ‘I have the ring I bought for you in my pocket. I planned to drive you down to Gower today after the wedding reception so I could propose to you again.’

She lifted her face to his. There was a peculiar expression in her eyes that he failed to decipher. ‘At sunset, on the cliffs overlooking Pobbles.’

‘You remembered.’

‘That the cliffs were where you intended to propose to me the first time, yes.’ She smiled.

‘It would have been perfect.’

‘It was just as perfect, if not more so, in the afternoon in the churchyard at Oxwich.’

‘Then, although it’s past sunset and this isn’t a cliff top, you will take the ring back?’

‘No, Joe.’

‘In God’s name why?’ he questioned heatedly, attracting the attention of the couples dancing around them. ‘I have everything. Money to give us a good start in life, good prospects …’

‘I don’t love you.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s the truth.’

‘You can’t switch your feelings on and off any more than I can. You love me, Lily, perhaps not as much as I love you but you do love me,’ he repeated fervently, in the hope of forcing her to accept what was so blatantly obvious to him.

‘Maybe it was the thrill of having my first boyfriend, maybe it was because you were kind to me when Auntie Norah died, or maybe I wanted to be in love because I’d heard so much about it and desperately wanted it to be my turn. Whatever it was, if I ever loved you, Joe, I don’t now.’

‘You’re just saying that to hurt me as I hurt you.’

‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you,’ she protested.

He either didn’t hear or chose to ignore her. ‘What do you want me to do? Go down on my knees and shout I love you here and now? Because if you want me to, I will.’

‘Please don’t,’ she cried, alarmed at the thought.

‘If you think I haven’t suffered enough, then you don’t know what I’ve been through since you returned my ring. I’m offering you everything I have, Lily. We could have a wonderful life together. I’ll graduate in a few months. I’ve checked with my solicitor, I’ll be able to draw on my trust fund to buy that cottage we talked about …’

‘You talked about.’ She recalled how his vivid imagination could take hold once he drifted into one of his fantasies and how much she’d loved listening to him sketch out the perfect future he would build for both of them. Almost as much as she’d loved listening to the romantic stories he’d woven about her mysterious past as an abandoned evacuee. But both fantasies had been shattered by the arrival of her mother. That event had forced her to re-evaluate her identity and her life, along with her relationship with Joe, bringing the realisation that daydreams were all very well – in their place – and that place wasn’t her everyday existence.

‘You wanted that cottage too. The green and gold drawing room, the blue, cream and silver bedroom …’

‘I thought I did at the time, Joe, but I was wrong.’

‘You haven’t changed any more than I have. I only have to look into your eyes to see you still want the same things as I do. You love me.’

‘No.’ She stopped dancing as the band struck the final chord. ‘I’m sorry, Joe, I never meant to mislead you.’ She slipped from his arms and held out her hand. ‘I hope we can still be friends.’

Instead of shaking her hand as she’d intended, he held it for a moment, then pressed it to his lips. ‘One day we’ll be a whole lot more than friends, Lily Sullivan. And that’s one promise I will keep.’

She hesitated, then realised there was little point in trying to reason with him. He’d obviously been drinking. If he remembered anything of their conversation when he sobered up, he’d understand that she had meant every word she’d said and would hopefully be too embarrassed to refer to the subject again.

Drink, Lily?’ Sam offered, as she returned to their table.

‘Have we time?’ She laid her hand on Martin’s shoulder as she sat next to him. He didn’t shrug it off but neither did he return her smile.

Sam checked his watch. ‘We don’t have to leave for half an hour.’

‘In that case, thank you.’

‘Give me a hand, Katie.’

Katie helped Sam gather the boys’ empty glasses and followed him to the bar.

‘Dance?’ Brian asked Judy, sensing emotional frost in the atmosphere.

As they made for the dance floor, Lily removed her hand from Martin’s shoulder. ‘You didn’t mind me dancing with Joe.’

‘You can dance with whoever you like.’

The silence at the table closed in around them until Lily felt she had to say something to break the tension between them. ‘You know Joe and I were finished before I went out with you.’

‘But he won’t accept it.’ It was a statement not a question.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘The way he looks at you. And he’s here on a Saturday night when he could be with his posh university friends.’

She sat forward until her head almost touched his. ‘I won’t be going out with him again, Martin.’

He moved away from her as if he wanted to emphasise the emotional distance that had grown between them since the outset of the evening. ‘You’re free to go out with anyone you like.’

‘I thought I was going out with you.’

‘I haven’t asked you to make any promises,’ he said flatly.

‘I don’t feel anything for Joe …’

‘Look, Lily,’ he interrupted sternly, ‘I’m an apprentice mechanic, with a temper I can’t control, on wages that will barely keep me in a rented room in a basement. I don’t have enough savings to put down a deposit on a second-hand car. Even when I qualify, the money won’t be much better. Joe has a trust fund that everyone talks about and when he finishes university he’ll start earning a salary – not wages – and ten times more than me.’ Not trusting himself to look at her again, he fumbled for his cigarettes and flicked open the packet.

‘Are you saying you want me to go out with Joe?’

‘No!’ He continued alternately to flick open and close the packet he was holding without attempting to remove a cigarette.

‘It sounds like it to me.’

‘I’m trying to make sure that you know I’ll never be able to offer you as much as Joe Griffiths.’

‘What kind of a girl do you think I am? A gold-digger …’

‘A gold-digger would never have gone out with me in the first place.’

‘Drinks, everyone.’ Sam set a pint of beer in front of Martin.

‘Thank you,’ Martin snapped.

‘Dance, Katie?’ Sam asked, as she placed three Babycham bottles besides Lily’s, Judy’s and her own glasses.

Realising his ‘thank you’ had sounded like an insult, Martin muttered, ‘Don’t go on our account.’

‘I do a mean cha-cha, as Katie is about to find out.’ Sam dumped the tray holding the second and third pints of beer on the table and cha-chaed Katie away.

‘Great night this is turning out to be.’

‘Are you talking about you thumping Adam, or me dancing with Joe?’ Lily queried icily.

‘Both,’ he answered honestly.

‘If you want to give me the brush-off, Martin, say the word and I won’t bother you again.’ Terrified of what his answer might be, she crossed her fingers under cover of the table.

‘I’m only telling you it’ll be years before I can think of marriage and even when I do, I won’t be able to give you a quarter of what Joe can – and that’s without bringing my temper into it.’

‘Stop going on about your temper. Everyone has one …’

‘Face it, Lily. Boys like me don’t go out with girls like you. Just look at us, you dress up to work in an office, I put on greasy overalls over old clothes to graft in a garage. You meet people – important people – every day in the bank, while I spend my days crawling under refuse lorries and buses, up to my neck in filth and oil. You make polite conversation. I hit people …’

‘Mention that once more tonight and I’ll hit you.’ She rose to her feet and for a second he thought she really was going to thump him.

Taking her hand, he pulled her back down on to her chair. ‘Whichever way you look at it, I don’t deserve a girl like you.’

‘That’s a load of nonsense. And just to set the record straight I’m not looking to get married to you – or anyone.’

‘Jack terrified me today. Eighteen years of age, taking on a wife and soon a baby. I couldn’t cope …’

‘No one is asking you to.’ She gripped the table until her fingers hurt. ‘Do you want to go out with me tomorrow or not?’

‘A man would have to be insane not to want to go out with you. And I’m not mad. But you only have to look at my family. My father …’

‘Why do I have the feeling that you’re looking for an excuse to get rid of me?’

The band broke into a rousing rendering of ‘Razzle Dazzle’. For once, Lily was glad she couldn’t hear herself think. Taking the bottle of Babycham Sam had bought her; she tipped it into her glass. When she looked at Martin again, he was staring at the dance floor. She loved him, she was certain of it, but she felt more confused about his feelings for her than ever.

‘I’m sitting on top of the world …’

‘You’ll wake the street,’ Brian hissed at Sam who’d broken into song as they turned from Verandah Street into Carlton Terrace.

‘I’ve a good voice so why shouldn’t I entertain the neighbours.’

‘Because it’s half past eleven and most of them are in bed.’

‘Sad, sad people.’

‘And you’re supposed to be a responsible member of the local constabulary,’ Judy reminded him.

‘Spoilsport.’ Sam giggled, putting his arm round Katie who shrank from his touch. ‘Who’s coming into our lair for coffee?’

‘Not me.’ Katie removed his hand from her shoulders and walked up to the front door.

‘Lily?’ Sam glanced from her to Martin.

‘Not tonight, Sam, thank you.’ Lily waited until Katie unlocked the door and followed her into the house without even so much as a ‘goodnight’ for Martin.

‘So much for their ladyships.’ Sam gave an unsteady bow as the door closed behind them. ‘Brian?’

‘I may call in after I’ve taken Judy home.’

‘Be careful’ – Sam lowered his voice as Martin ran down the steps to their basement – ‘or you too will fall prey to the wrath of a woman.’

‘It’s been a disaster,’ Brian declared as he walked Judy to her door.